Staff Board of Trustees
Graduates, as I prepare to officially accept you as a graduating class please know that I am deeply honored to be in your presence this evening.
I find it symbolic that we are here together...staff, students, families, and friends to celebrate and honor an incredibly wonderful event in your young lives. In many ways, this evening represents your transition into adulthood as you join the rest of us as travelers in life: trying together to understand who we are and what life may bring us and trying together to craft a place for ourselves in a complex world.
You have worked hard for four years and tonight honors your diligence. Here we are this evening, celebrating the end of one chapter in your life and the start of another. And what will you take with you from here?
• Perhaps a favorite story, a mathematical formula, or a handshake.
• Perhaps a special encounter, a great piece of writing, or a lifelong friendship.
• Perhaps an inspiration, a scientific method, and maybe even love.
Most importantly, however, I hope that you take with you a powerful belief in yourself.
This is a record of your time. This is your movie...your song. And you are the creator of your individual story. What will this story be?
My wish for each of you is that you will live big.
Live out your dreams and fantasies. Explore the world, whisper questions to the Sphinx at night. Sit for hours at a sidewalk cafe and toast your heroes. Look up and down and all around and feel the warmth of the sun. Take many walks on the beach at sunset. Believe in the unknown. Live in many places. Surround yourself with flowers and books and music and paintings and sculptures. Keep a record of your time. Learn to write well and to read well. Be a kind and caring friend. Give much and expect little. Learn to listen and talk well. Know your country, know the world, know your history, and, most importantly, know yourself. Be good to those around you. Find your passion and discover what makes you tick, what makes you think, what makes you believe. And then, follow that passion. Give all that you can.
Continue to learn because when we do, we can still marvel at the beauty of a sentence or cadence by Shakespeare, or an idea by Plato. Learning is what brings people together. It is what gives us hope for the future.
Now, just one more task. Here is your last homework assignment from Heights High: Be grateful. As I've grown older, I have learned to appreciate living in the moment and I ask that you do, too. I am asking this graduating class to do just this one thing. Keep a grateful journal. Every night list five things that happened this day, in days to come, for which you are grateful. What it will begin to do is to change your perspective of your day and your life. I believe that if you can learn to focus on what you have, you will always see that the universe is abundant and you can have many opportunities. Be grateful. Keep a journal.
Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe. This is your moment and this is your parents' moment. Don't skip past them to go to that party tonight. Run to them first and hug them and tell them how much you love them. And, in the future, continue to rely on them for support and guidance and love. Your friends and family will continue to sustain you because life can sometimes be hard.
And so, graduates of the class of 2004, I wish you years of joy, years of serenity, years of friendship and years of love. Most of all, I wish you peace.
Mr. Cipolletti, I accept this class, the class of 2004, as official graduates of Cleveland Heights High School .
